Malcolm Forbes

Malcolm Forbes, the former publisher of Forbes magazine, had a saying that might sound like he was joking, but there was much truth in it, “When in doubt, route.” Here is how he described what he meant, “If you don’t know what to do with many of the papers piled on your desk, stick a dozen colleagues’ names on them and pass them along.”

This is a real life example of what Stephen Covey said about the importance of delegation, Organizations don’t grow much without delegation…because they are confined to the capacities of the boss.” You see, successful leaders have to be Delegators – you don’t know how to do everything, and even if you did you don’t have the time.

But, there is a misperception of how successful delegation works. Some people think that if you are a delegator you are giving away the responsibility to achieve success. This is not the way it works. A Delegator does not give away and go away, they are here to stay, but in a different way. Here are the three steps of a Delegator.

The three steps of a Delegator:

Establish the vision

Even though you are delegating much of what you do, one thing that you can’t delegate is establishing the vision for the team – this one is 100 percent yours. You decide and describe where the team is going and what success looks like.

Eli Broad founded two Fortune 500 companies in different industries (KB Homes and SunAmerica). When running KB homes, Broad signed off on every decision about the land they would build homes on, “I made sure always to know where we were buying, what the market was like there, and what the lot would do for us.”

Broad didn’t exert that type of control on everything, “Once you’ve identified your crucial tasks and sorted out your priorities, try to find a way to delegate everything else.” He went on to say, “The trick to delegating is to make sure your employees share your priorities.” This is the key to establishing the vision.

Agree to the strategy

Now you should be ready to share control. This is the big picture of how the vision will be accomplished. Here the delegator works with the team to develop the strategy, ensuring it aligns with the vision. This step is 50/50 between the delegator and the team. Open dialogue, and differing opinions are heard to come to the right answer.

Leaders don’t need to have every answer, but they do need to find every answer. That is the shared part.

John Maxwell is an international bestselling author on Leadership and he also founded and leads several companies (Equip, Maximum Impact, and The John Maxwell Team).

John says that delegating the big picture strategy is important because it allows him to do what is important to him. He recognizes the other end to this delegation, “Assignments are not always done ‘my way’. But I have discovered that most things can be accomplished effectively in many ways.”

Activate the plan

Now you are ready for the strategy to be accomplished using the strengths and talents of each person on the team. These are the short term actions that if successful will lead to accomplishing the vision.

Here is where some Delegators incorrectly give up all control and hope that success will come. The real success comes when you understand that you will accomplish what you inspect, not what you expect. While you should let your team make 100 percent of the day to day decisions, you have to stay connected to see that everything is heading in the right direction.

Wayne Huizenga, the founder of AutoNation, Waste Management, and Blockbuster described his role as a delegator like this, “I give authority, but I stay in touch. Otherwise it doesn’t work.”

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Leaders with humility will succeed in their career. Humility allows people to listen to, and learn from others who have been where the are going. Humility doesn’t mean you doubt your ability, it means you respect the ability of others.

Leaders with humility succeed because they are open to learning from others. Great leaders realize that there is very little they do well that they didn’t learn from someone else. Learning from others is a strength of great leaders. Will Rogers once said, “A man learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.”

Leaders with humility succeed because they gain knowledge and wisdom from every encounter. Each person can learn and grow if they will determine to learn from the success of others. Bill Nye said, “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.”

John Maxwell, the great leadership expert, uses a set of seven questions when he talks to successful leaders:

What are the great lessons you have learned?

How has failure shaped your life?

What are your strengths?

What is your passion?

Who do you know that I should know?

What have you read that I should read?

What have you done that I should do?

Leaders with humility succeed because they surround themselves with people who know more than they do. Great leaders know that they can’t know everything. If you want to be the best, then hire the best in every area. Leaders with humility don’t need to be the smartest person in the room; in fact it is a requirement that they are not.

Malcolm Forbes, former publisher of Forbes said, “Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he’s hired to do.”

Leo Iacocca, Chrysler’s former CEO said, ”I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.”